How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow

This book

Is for the grievers

This book

Is for the left behind

This book

Is for every broken heart

Searching for a home

-Kathleen Glasgow.

Kathleen Glasgow is an American contemporary author who is best known for her emotionally powerful young adult novels of which 'How to Make Friends with the Dark' is one of my favourites. It is a book about a girl named Tiger Tolliver who learns to live with loss and grief. It shows us the real meaning of family- of caring and letting yourself be cared for. Grief is a very hard thing to process and live with. And to pen it down is even harder. But this book does that hauntingly well. In this story, Tiger's mother dies and she is rendered an orphan and a property of the state, forced to move from one foster home to the other. And the worst part of it all is how there is no guidebook to deal with grief as Tiger struggles with it as the trajectory of her entire life changes.

"Who would ever guess that it isn't your bones or your blood or your heart that keeps everything humming along inside you. It's your freaking mom, and when she's dead, it all disappears."

The instant I finished this book, I just went straight up to my mom who was taking her afternoon nap and cuddled beside her. She asked me what was the reason for the sudden affection. I just shrugged and said that I was done reading a book. She fell back asleep within moments, her fingers entangled in my hair and her arm around me holding me close. Now, she might not even remember that particular moment if I ask her about it now. But I do. I do now and I will forever because I was so scared of a loss that I had not even experienced. My heart was beating too hard even at the mere thought of the grief that would choke me if I ever experience a loss like that. Glasgow's writing is that much realistically emotional. The way she describes feelings, pain and grief- it's raw, devastatingly so. Her writing and the story tore at my heart multiple times. I highly recommend this book but before you start it, do look up the trigger warnings because the content is quite heavy.

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